


cotillion

by meathermac



Category: Not Another D&D Podcast (Podcast)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Introspection, M/M, Pre-Canon, Pre-Slash, i did my best don't @ me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-23
Updated: 2020-03-23
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:53:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23274283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meathermac/pseuds/meathermac
Summary: cotillion (n.) /kəˈtilyən/a formal ball sometimes used to teach middle-school-age children etiquette.if beverly's being honest, he'd rather be literally anywhere else than this stupid class.
Relationships: Erlin Kindleaf/Beverly Toegold V
Comments: 14
Kudos: 68





	cotillion

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by that one random-ass comment caldwell made in ep. 3 about beverly having to go to cotillion because i had to go to cotillion when i was younger and it’s horrific but daMN the beverlin opportunities 
> 
> also huge shoutout to kes (KLStarre) for just kinda being nice to me i guess? and also just like encouraging me to post my works and really start being a part of the naddpod community and like. yeah. thanks my man i really appreciate it 
> 
> hope you like it!!

Beverly is currently drafting a six-page essay in his head on how unnecessary napkins are. 

Technically, he should be paying attention to the Scoutmaster, who’s droning on and on about proper dinner etiquette, but there’s a really fancy napkin in front of him and it’s  _ very  _ annoying. He makes eye contact with his friend Cran from across the table, where she’s building a very complicated tower of forks, and mouths “What’s going on?” 

She shrugs and reaches for the salad fork sitting in front of his  _ other _ friend, Derlin, adding it to the top of her tower. Beverly groans and leans back in his chair, more bored than he’s ever been in his life, probably. He can’t say for  _ sure,  _ because there was stuff he had to go to when he was younger that was really boring, but this is certainly up there. 

The dining etiquette section is thankfully interrupted by Cran’s fork tower crashing to the ground, and the Scoutmaster dismisses them all for a fifteen-minute break while Cran gets a talking-to. Bev joins Derlin and his  _ best _ friend, Erlin, outside the big ballroom where they had to do this stupid thing, and immediately tackles Erlin in a hug. 

“Watch it, Beverly!” Scoutmaster Denny scolds. He’s not old enough to teach napkin class or whatever the heck this thing is called, so he has to supervise Bev’s Green Teen group during it instead. Denny is kind of cool, he thinks, but he could be cooler. 

Erlin glares at Denny and hugs Beverly tighter, and he feels his face heat up. When he was younger, it used to be normal to hug his friends, but now that he’s 12 and practically grown-up he always feels weird. Not bad-weird, good-weird. But still weird. 

When Cran is done getting yelled at by the head Scoutmaster, she bounds out into the main room happily, grinning even as Denny lectures her on setting a good example for her group. She shoots them all a wink and pulls a fork out of the pocket of her dress, and the rest of them collapse into uncontrollable giggles. 

They do eventually go back into the ballroom, and the head Scoutmaster calls for everyone to pair up into partners for the dance section. 

Beverly rolls his eyes and ignores them entirely, taking Erlin’s hand and twirling him around. He laughs, and they dance for a little while until Denny storms over and separates the four of them, shoving Bev towards a Green Teen girl from another group. He begrudgingly dances with her until the Scoutmaster calls for a break, during which he leaves his partner and sneaks back over to Erlin, who’s dancing with his older sister. 

“Beverly…” Erlin’s older sister mumbles. “Denny’s gonna kill you if you keep doing this. He’s already pissed at you and we’re a half-hour in.”

He shrugs and takes Erlin’s hand. “My partner’s no good at dancing.” 

“I don’t care, Beverly,” she says-- _ Egwene  _ says, that’s her name--“Go dance with your partner.” 

Erlin shoots her his best puppy dog eyes and pout and Egwene just rolls her eyes and looks the other way. “Fine. Do whatever you want. But you know what Nana’s like, Erlin, she’s not gonna be happy if you get in trouble  _ again _ …” 

They don’t hear the rest of her sentence because they’re running off into the thick of the Green Teens where Cran and Derlin are standing, and the four of them sneak out of the ballroom to the back of the building. There’s a little sunny spot with trees there that they found the last session, and when they get there Cran ties her fancy dress so that it’s up at her thighs and all three boys pull off their jackets. Beverly calls out “Tag!” as he hits Erlin on the shoulder and starts running, and soon a chaotic game of Tag ensues in which Derlin continues to try and shush them every five minutes and it  _ never  _ works. 

When they’re too tired to continue, and Erlin has grass stains up and down his suit from tripping during the game, they all flop down under the shade of the tree and laugh about how much  _ fun  _ they’re having instead of going to that stupid class. Beverly goes on a long tirade about how they won’t let him do anything fun, and everyone voices their agreement. Cran launches into a story about what Denny said to her after she made that whole tower out of forks, and the class is entirely forgotten.

The time passes by quickly, and soon enough Scoutmaster Denny is running out to the back yelling their names. Beverly tries to help Erlin clean up a bit while Derlin and Cran try desperately to untangle whatever she’s done to her skirt. He storms over to their little grass patch and goes pink in the face when he sees them. Beverly is sitting on top of Erlin, furiously trying to scrub the grass out of his shirt, and Cran and Derlin are both awkwardly tangled in her dress. Egwene shows up soon after, and she instead just bursts into laughter and claps Denny on the back, saying “Bud, this one’s on you. I can’t control anything these kids do, I’m just here to supervise and make sure no one dies.” She blows her younger brother a kiss and walks away, leaving a very red-faced and angry Denny to deal with the four of them. 

Beverly’s parents are decidedly unhappy with him when he gets home, and his dad lectures him for like  _ hours _ on behaving properly at these functions if he ever wants to be a Green Knight. He really does want to be a Green Knight, really, but aren’t they supposed to be out there fighting stuff? 

He relays this thought to his dad, who pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs. “It’s not all fighting, Bev. It’d be no fun if it was all fighting. You have to know how to present yourself, that’s why you go to these things.”

Beverly (the Fifth, of course) crosses his arms petulantly and huffs, “Well, that doesn’t mean it’s not  _ lame,  _ Dad. Wouldn’t a Green Knight prefer to be out in nature than cooped up in that stupid old ballroom?” 

“Of course, kiddo.” His dad gives him a stiff pat on the shoulder. “But just because it’s what you want doesn’t mean it’s what you get.” 

He narrows his eyes at that, but he swallows his pride and walks off to his room, mulling over his dad’s last sentence. 

Maybe he’s right. Maybe it is important to go to this stupid class where they tell him about the fourteen different kinds of forks and where he gets yelled at for trying to do anything  _ fun _ . It could be useful later on, he thinks.

But it dawns on him quickly-- _ maybe _ Pelor’s just testing him! And if he can get through these horribly boring classes where the Scoutmasters are mean and they don’t like him, he can get to the fun parts where he’s out in the forests with Cran and Derlin and Erlin. 

He tells his father his revelation, and Bev Sr. just laughs and tussles his hair. Beverly feels a little bit proud of this because at least his dad’s kinda happy with him, for once. 

The next weekend brings another class of what he’s now learned is called cotillion--which is a dumb word, objectively--and this time they’re talking about “social etiquette” or whatever it’s called. Beverly barely gets ten minutes into the class before he gets yelled at by Scoutmaster Denny for something that’s  _ not even that bad _ . He asks a wholly innocent question about whether or not they need to have the same partners they did yesterday and Denny starts chewing him out for being rude. 

He’s starting to track a pattern, which is that whenever he tries to do something the Scoutmasters deem as “not appropriate”, they get mad. It’s  _ lame _ , and it’s probably not even that big of a deal, but for Pelor’s sake, why’s he gotta do another stupid dance with a girl he doesn’t even know? If they’re gonna make him learn these ridiculous dances, they should at  _ least _ let him learn them with Erlin or Cran or Derlin.  _ Apparently _ they cause too much trouble when they’re together and need to be separated.

But  _ no,  _ cause  _ apparently _ they cause too much trouble when they’re together and need to be separated. And since this is the second time in two weeks he’s been told not to be a smart-aleck about the class, his  _ dad  _ has to come down and have a talk with the Scoutmasters. 

“That’s so stupid,” Cran says as she shoves some of the dinner rolls laid out on the table into her skirt pocket. “I think they should just let us do whatever we want.” 

“You know they can’t do that, Cran,” Erlin replies diplomatically, and she just sticks her tongue out at him. He rolls his eyes and leans back in his chair. “It is stupid, though. Egwene keeps telling me that I’m doing it wrong, and I’m totally  _ not. _ ” 

Beverly isn’t really paying attention to what they’re saying. He’s focused on what’s gonna happen when his dad gets down there, and all of the scenarios he’s running through his head don’t end well for him. “My dad’s gonna kill me,” he mumbles, and his best friend puts an arm around him comfortingly. 

“He won’t  _ kill _ you.” Derlin has shoved an indecent amount of rolls in his mouth, so his words are extremely muffled. “He’ll probably just give you a lecture and then forget about it the next time he sees you.” 

“You don’t get it,” he groans, “my dad is already disappointed in me. He’s just gonna be madder.” 

Erlin pulls Beverly into a tight hug. “I’ll protect you.” 

He scoffs. “Yeah, right.” 

“I’m serious!” he replies, pouting. “If your dad is gonna be mad at you, you let me know and I’ll protect you. I may not be the strongest, but I’m a good healer!” 

“You’re right.” Beverly nuzzles into Erlin’s neck while Cran pretends to gag. “I’m just worried ‘cause he was super mad last time and now he’s gonna be super mad again.”

His friends reassure him that it’ll all be okay, he wasn’t even being rude, he was just asking a question, and Scoutmaster Denny can be a bit of a butt sometimes anyways. When the class ends, Beverly meets his dad at the front of the ballroom, hanging his head sheepishly. 

“I’m sorry, Dad,” he mumbles when he sees his father. “I know that I told you I was gonna try harder, and I’m sorry I messed up.” 

Beverly Sr. nods stiffly and doesn’t say anything, and when he walks inside to go talk to the Scoutmasters Bev sits down on a bench and buries his face in his hands. 

He oughta stop acting like this before his dad starts actively hating him. It’s probably super embarrassing to have to talk to your twelve-year-old son’s Scoutmaster when you’re the captain of the Green Knights, and Beverly’s probably just annoying him by doing stuff like this. 

He wants to have fun with his friends, and he wants to dance with Erlin and play pranks on Denny, but he doesn’t want his dad to keep looking at him like that--he doesn’t want his dad to not say a word to him when he’s in trouble. 

Beverly bites his lip hard, trying to keep himself from crying. He doesn’t like this feeling. He feels awful for upsetting his dad but there’s a thought gnawing at him, saying  _ well, he shouldn’t be mad at you for just trying to have fun  _ and yet another saying  _ you’re such a horrible kid, you’re an embarrassment to the Toegolds _ and he bites his lip so hard he tastes blood. 

He’ll fix this. He’ll figure it out. 

When his dad returns, Bev stands up and they go back home in complete silence. He wants to apologize again, but it doesn’t feel like the moment. 

It never feels like the moment. 

The next week, when his friends ask him to join them out back, he says no. He doesn’t want his dad to be mad at him again. 

The week after that, he says no again and Erlin looks sadder than Bev’s seen in a long time.

The week after that, they stop asking. 

And now he’s standing here in Moonstone, wondering if things would be a little bit different if he’d kept going with them. 

His dad kept getting mad at him anyway. 

**Author's Note:**

> hope you enjoyed!
> 
> lichen, commerce, and scribble as always :D and hit me up on tumblr [@mydicegotcursed] if you're feeling like it! im always down to talk naddpod 
> 
> have a good day/night lovelies!!


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